Over half of world’s population owns a mobile phone

New research has revealed that 60 per cent of the world’s population now owns a mobile phone.

According to the survey, carried out by UN agency the International Telecommunications Agency (ITA), there are currently some 4.1 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, compared with one billion in 2002.

It was found that people are using their handsets in increasingly diverse ways, including banking, sending money to relatives, informing clients of prices via text message and organising product deliveries.

"There has been a clear shift to mobile cellular telephony. In contrast to the growth in the mobile sector, fixed line telephony has experienced nearly no growth in the last decade," the ITA report said.

Earlier this month, moneysupermarket.com advised some of these 4.1 billion mobile users to ensure that they are on the right contract, after the company found that up to £10 billion a year is wasted because consumers only use around 66 per cent of their tariffs.